Big Data Has Arrived…in Hospitality

From the desk of Brian Goodman, CTO Kalibri Labs

We made it! Big data has finally entered the Gartner trough of disillusionment, meaning that inflated expectations of Big Data have been tempered. For emerging technology buffs this marks the last moment before redirecting attention to the next horizon. For everyone else, this is the moment where the exploration of what the trend of Big Data means is behind us and we move from being fashion forward to marketing icons.

Even if “Big Data” is not your business, it has captured an entire technological and business shift, filled with possibilities. If it were not for the broad architectural impacts making stream processing, structured and unstructured data, distributed storage and processing accessible it would be hard to argue anyone needed Big Data. This availability of data access, storage and organization is critical. Consider the giants that built the now decade old technology stack, the volumes of data they work with, and not one has Big Data. What captured the imagination of technologists everywhere was the idea that there may be a different way of dealing with their data pain – an acknowledgement of how insufficient the existing world of data management and business intelligence had become. In an increasingly competitive climate, insight is at the source of competitive advantage and five things primarily gate that:

1. Identifying the right data sources

2. Acquiring the right mix of data science and engineering talent

3. Translating the science to simple ideas

4. Contextualizing to filter facts and move from insight to strategy to plan to practice

5. Individuals with influence championing the opportunity inherent in this data to drive execution

We made it! There is just enough maturity across technology, patterns and practice to no longer be distracted by shiny objects and inflated expectations. We can now move beyond the static repetitive consumption of data to experiences that illuminate the business context, develop data intuition and effectively deliver the “punch line” of opportunity. Kalibri Labs is the sweet spot for research seeded, data-driven insight in hospitality. Relatively early in the journey, it’s clear that things are about to change and Big Data is about to mean something to the hospitality industry.